Founder of my local Ruby User Group is going down the alt-right pipeline. It's sad to see.
It started with him posting anti-vegan memes and escalated into general hate towards climate activists and any climate action.
Today he posted a link to a disinformation site about Greta Thunberg's "net worth", "car collection" and her "private jet" lol. The first header on the site says "The Rothschild Connection". 🙈
As I said, most mainstream media shared the same assessment of #GretaThunberg at the time.
So, no, it is not fostering right-wing extremism.
However, it definitely is not one of its best covers and the subtitle is too ballyhooed/Yellow Press style.
With Palestine and Ukraine against Russia, NATO and Israel Greta leads the way!
And yet, despite the gloomy news, despite the rampant barbarism, despite the depression that pervades everything, there is still light and hope! And this light and this hope are the young people who are fighting at the same time on all the great fronts where humanity is measuring itself against death in its final struggle to exist: on the fronts of climate catastrophe and injustice, of Palestine and the Ukraine, on the fronts of the struggle of the poor, the oppressed and the humiliated throughout the world.
And the most emblematic representative of this new generation resisting and counter-attacking is, of course, the young Swedish world citizen Greta Thunberg, who denounces and fights both the Israeli genocidaires of the Palestinians and the Russian invaders of the Ukraine, Putin’s obscurantist, imperialist Russia and militarist, equally imperialist NATO. And of course, above all, the capitalists and their governments who are methodically destroying our planet’s climate, preparing the most nightmarish future for humankind. And all this against the mainstream, despite the campaign of denigration and intimidation against her [...]
And, above all, systematically putting her words into practice, even if they often land her in a police station or prison, handcuffed...
In 2018, a young Swedish girl skipped classes to protest climate inaction in front of the country’s parliament, sparking a world-wide wave of climate protests, galvanizing young people to champion the issue, and highlighting the impotence of politicians (‘blah, blah, blah’) in the face of this existential crisis.
The COP 28 climate deal reached with huge fanfare this week in Dubai is a stab in the back for the nations most affected by global warming and won't stop temperatures rising beyond critical levels, activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday.
Let's not sugar coat it: This COP was not a historic achievement. This COP was a historic failure.
That doesn't mean that climate summits are a lost cause. But we desperately need climate summits that are not beholden to fossil fuel lobbyists. #COP28
There is not one sentence in this article that I disagree with. Once again, Thunberg shows us how it's done.
"The horrific murders of Israeli civilians by Hamas cannot in any way legitimise Israel’s ongoing war crimes. Genocide is not self-defence, nor is it in any way a proportionate response"
Greta Thunberg (@gretathunberg), brzmiąca nieco cynicznie...
"Co jakiś czas nasi przywódcy składają kilka obietnic i wyznaczają różne niejasne, niewiążące, często odległe cele. Następnie, gdy tylko nie uda im się ich osiągnąć, natychmiast wyznaczają nowe. I tak dalej.
"Może się to wydawać absurdalne, ale zdecydowanie działa - jeśli celem jest utrzymanie dotychczasowej działalności, wzrostu gospodarczego i wysokich wskaźników popularności.
"Ponieważ poziom publicznego zainteresowania i świadomości tych nieudanych zobowiązań dotyczących klimatu i różnorodności biologicznej jest bliski zeru, a media tęsknią za pozytywnymi wiadomościami w ramach swojej polityki obustronnego raportowania - nie może być tylko ponuro i ponuro! - ogólne przesłanie, które jest przekazywane, jeśli w ogóle, jest takie, że podejmowane są działania. Może nie zawsze wszystko idzie tak dobrze, ale hej, oni naprawdę bardzo się starają i na pewno poczyniono duże postępy - więc przestań być tak negatywny przez cały czas!".
"...The star, whose Eras tour broke box office records and provoked an inquiry into #Ticketmaster's sales practices, follows the likes of Barack #Obama, #GretaThunberg and Volodymyr #Zelensky...
"...Its shortlist... included Xi Jinping, Vladimir #Putin, #Barbie and the striking #Hollywood actors and writers.
What a star Chris Packham is. I'm so relieved we have a credible voice to push back against Tory denials and indifference to the climate emergency. Someone we can all get behind. My latest hero.
Police remove Greta Thunberg as they move climate activists from the organization Ta Tillbaka Framtiden, who are blocking the entrance to Oljehamnen in Malmo, Sweden, June 19. TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS
In Marshallese culture, there is a prominent attitude of "Enaaj Emman," which translates loosely to "It will be okay." It is strongly embedded in the culture and people's everyday thinking. If you are ever despondent, somebody is always there to remind you that "enaaj emman." It is a focus on hope and happiness that pervades daily life despite the struggles, setbacks, and disappointments that inevitably happen. People retain this optimism even after being irradiated by nuclear testing by the USGovt throughout the 1950s.
Having lived in the Marshall Islands for eight years, I am acutely aware of the threats and dangers posed by both nuclear waste and fossil fuels.
At this point, I expect to see this country of beautiful coral atolls and generous, gentle people be subsumed by rising sea levels. They are undergoing severe stress at 1.1C and will be completely uninhabitable at 1.5C. We will push past 1.5C by the end of this decade, and I don't think we have enough time, nor are we doing the right things, to reverse the momentum. These islands will be gone, and an entire country and culture will have been displaced or extinguished.
It fills me with profound sadness, especially when I think how it all could have been prevented but for the fraud perpetrated by fossil fuel energy companies and the greed of their executives. And let's not forget about the collusion of our politicians through bribery, nor forget about the perpetuation of the fraud through mass media owned by members of the same bourgeois class.
I understand the need to continue seeking solutions. I hope people create those solutions. Enaaj emman. I appreciate people like @pvonhellermannn who, despite feeling despondent, has provided to us long threads informing us about this crisis. Hope is still alive as Tina Stege, #ClimateEnvoy from the Marshall Islands, impresses upon us in these two posts:
Yet I am despondent. I am also very angry. My reaction is to want to dislodge and remove the parasitical elites of the 1%, punish them harshly, and completely dismantle their capitalist systems. I despair that billions will have to die before we make that happen. Certainly among the first great wave of casualties will the Marshall Islanders. And that fills me with rage.
It also brings back memories of living in the islands. It's as close to an anarchist way of life as I've ever seen in the world. And I'm now reminded of an elder woman who was asked by another Peace Corps Volunteer, "Who do you think is the best US president?" Her response: "I think President Kennedy was the smartest president. He sent all these young people here so they could learn "mantin majel" (Marshallese custom). There is so much wisdom in that statement, that it resonates even more strongly for me 35 years later. The world needs to learn Mantin Majel and enact its inherent values of peace, cooperation, solidarity, and optimism.